


laid bare

by visiblemarket



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: John is a Brat, M/M, chas is MARGINALLY more matured but like, is he, is he really, this fic started as a joke but now it's ~real~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 06:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/pseuds/visiblemarket
Summary: John turns to thank him, and the words fail. He stares at Chas, gobsmacked.“What,” he hears himself say, higher and more strained than he'd like. “Thehellhappened to your face?”Chas looks at him with undisguised confusion, and rubs a hand along his chin. “I…shaved?”





	laid bare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessicamiriamdrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/gifts).



> ~~more like laid _bear_ ayyyyyyy~~

John, half-awake and blissfully warm, feels the bed shift.

A hand stroking through his hair. Careful weight against his back. A nose nuzzles at the nape of his neck, and John makes a low, pleased sound. 

A kiss to his shoulder, and a wonderfully familiar if slightly teasing voice. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

John gives a quick, sleepy chuckle -- charmed  in spite of himself -- and turns his head.

“What's that make you, prince bloody— _fuck_!” he yelps, jerking back from the bare, unfamiliar chin that is, quite suddenly, filling his line of sight, and finds himself — tangled in the bedsheets, still half asleep — tumbling onto the hard stone floor. 

“ _John_?” comes Chas’s voice, sharp with concern, from above him. 

John blinks, trying to take stock: he’d hit the floor hard but with no apparent lasting damage, except to his pride which, frankly, has taken worse hits than that.

He tries to sit, and finds himself being helped along the way, with Chas’s big, steady hand finding his and easing him up into a sitting position. 

John turns to thank him, and the words fail. He stares at Chas, gobsmacked. 

“What,” he hears himself say, higher and more strained than he'd like. “The _hell_ happened to your face?”

Chas looks at him with undisguised confusion, and rubs a hand along his chin. “I…shaved?”

“You _shaved_?” he sputters, like a fool. “ _When_?”

"Just now?” Chas says, warily. "Needed a change, I guess."

“And you — you didn’t think to — mention it?”

“To you?”

“To who bloody else, mate!”

Chas blinks. “Why would I — why would I mention it to you? It’s my face.”

“Because — “ John flounders. “It’s a bit of a change, yeah? Could've warned a man, is all I’m sayin’."

"I usually shave it every six months,” says Chas, incredulous.

“Since when?”

“Since I’ve had it."

“No you don’t,” says John, petulant, as his mind races. “You couldn't possibly. I’d’ve — I’d’ve seen you.” But there were times when he went months -- entire years -- without seeing Chas. Without knowing what he was doing, much less what he looked like. Dropping in when he needed something and dropping out once he’d gotten it.

Chas is giving him a thoroughly unimpressed and entirely well-deserved look. “Are you _serious_?”

John is, but can’t quite bring himself to say so. He crawls back on the bed, and looks at Chas’s face again. Really looks at him — he looks younger. Averagely handsome, with acres of bare skin. Like any other bloke you'd run into at a shop or a show or on the street, nod at, and never think twice about.

John reaches out to stroke at his cheeks, and his chin. He smells different -- aftershave, John can only assume -- and his eyes are more prominent than before: soft and tired, and the dark green depth John’d only really noticed the first time he’d gotten close enough to kiss him is suddenly strikingly obvious. Everyone else’ll see that, now.

"Cor, but you've got a jaw on you, eh?" he says, teasing, but it's true -- some men, he knows, grow beards to strengthen weak jaws but Chas's just been hiding his, letting his beard and thick hair and plain clothes neutralize the sheer bloody size of him, smooth his edges into soft, inviting curves.

Chas sighs. “You don’t like it.”

It’s not a question, but John knows better than to leave it unanswered. “Didn’t say that,” he tries, and cringes, knowing how unconvincing it sounds. “Might just — might just take gettin’ used to, is all."

Chas huffs, but seems to accept that. Smiles, even, apparently amused at John's cautious explorations of his face. “I didn’t have a beard when you met me,” he points out, slightly condescending.

As if John doesn’t _remember_ , as if John never thinks of him, the quiet, careful tree of a lad -- all hunched shoulders and surreptitious eyerolls -- he'd followed around for weeks and flirted with mercilessly, without ever intending to pull the trigger.

“Well I didn’t bloody sleep with you _then_ , did I?” John says, light and thoughtless, and then freezes: Chas’s face has shifted, from the usual fond exasperation to obviously wounded shock. Christ, if Chas had a shit poker face before -- like this, with every twitch of his lips and cheeks and corners of his eyes visible, now it's like his every bloody thought is out there, bare, for all to see.

Though, for now, it's just John -- and it's just John who knows he's utterly fucked. "Wait, I didn’t mean—“

“Yeah,” Chas says, dropping his gaze and pulling away from John's grasp. “Yeah, okay.”

“Chas—“ John says, reaching out to him again, but Chas is already out of reach, rising from the bed and pulling a shirt on. "Chas, I didn't mean like--"

"It's fine," Chas says, as he goes, letting the door slam shut behind him.

John debates following him for probably a second too long -- by the time he's groaned to himself and crawled out of bed and located enough clothes to look presentable enough, Chas's run into Zed. John can hear her, down the hall, cooing at Chas's new fresh face. 

"You look so much younger!" she's saying, when John exists the bedroom. 

Chas throws John a quick glance before he answers. "Yeah, some people aren't into that, apparently."

"Oh for _fuck's_ sake, that isn't what I said."

"What did you say?" says Zed, who is, as ever, enjoying this too bloody much.

"I said -- I didn't -- look, I was half asleep, might've hit my head, dealin' with all of --" he gestures vaguely at Chas's face. "Dealin' with all of _that_ , I was just -- just a bit overwhelmed, is all."

Zed gives him a quick, almost conspiratorial head shake -- _you're making it worse,_ it seems to say, which would've been helpful to know as he was saying it, and is perhaps less so now. He sighs, and looks at Chas. 

Chas looks at Zed. "I'm heading into town for a while, do you want to come?"

"Chas," John tries.

"I think John needs some time to come to term with _such_ a big change."

Zed looks at him, then at Chas. "Sure," she says, cautious. "Sounds...fun."

" _Chas_ ," he tries again, and Chas looks at him.

"Yes, John?"

"I--" he shoves his hands in his pockets. "You --" Chas looks like he's about to roll his eyes and turn away again, and John gives up. "You look good, mate."

"Thank you," he says, turns around, and heads up the stairs. 

*

It's mid afternoon by the time they come back -- might even be dark, though John hasn't been out all day and wouldn't know. He hears the steps on the stairs and then the performatively loud snippets of conversation, which seems to center around whether the check out girl had been flirting with Chas.

If it's the one John thinks -- bright and blond, with a cheerful smile, always willing to take them even when she's at an express lane and they've got more than the requisite ten items -- the answer's fairly fucking obvious.

John sighs, and stays in his room.

*

"You're such a hypocrite, " Chas says, sharp and loaded, like he's been holding it in and has finally been convinced to let it fly by the hushed conversation John'd awkwardly interrupted on his way to the loo. 

John doesn't respond, just watches as Chas lets the door shut behind him and walks up to John, finger out and pointing at his face.

 "You don't tell _me_ anything," Chas says.

"I'd tell you if I was gonna dye my bloody hair!" John protests, knowing it's not the same, knowing he wouldn't, knowing Chas probably wouldn't care. 

Chas rolls his eyes. "But not that you were going to use yourself as bait for a demon," he says, and starts counting off on his fingers. "Or steal a sword from an angel. Or try to trap an ancient evil in a leftover--"

"You weren't going to tell me you were separated."

Chas stops short. He blinks, and lets his hands fall. "I was going to tell you," he says, weakly. "Eventually."

"No you weren't, " John says. "You were going to let me find out on my own." _Like you let me find out you'd gotten married_ , John could also point out, if he wanted to rub salt in the wound.

Chas exhales. He sounds -- he _looks_ \-- exhausted, and the usual twinge of guilt John feels, whenever he notices Chas's heavy eyes and slow, dragging movements amps up to a full blown ache. _God_ , he's a shit. Every bloody thing he's done seems to have made Chas's life worse, and if it's _this_ , of all things, that Chas leaves him over...

Chas sits down on the bed. "Okay," he says, taking another breath, and looks over at John. After a moment, he pats the mattress next to him. "Come here."

John does. 

They sit together for a moment, staring straight ahead, before Chas speaks.

"I think we should talk more. Tell each other stuff. You know. "

"Christ," says John, aghast. "Do we have to?"

"I know, I know," says Chas, shaking his head. "But I think -- I think we do. Especially if we're-- if we're gonna keep -- " he waves a hand between them, and John reaches over and weaves their fingers together. 

Chas looks over at him, and cocks his head. John shrugs, and gives his hand a squeeze. Chas smiles -- a soft, tender smile, one that spreads easily across his bare face and makes John's heart quicken.

"Right," he says, turning away, hoping he's done it fast enough that Chas hadn't seen him blush. "Right, well, in the spirit of-- in the spirit of the thing. What I said before. About when we met--"

"You don't have to--"

"You bloody well said I did, mate, so now you--"

Chas sighs and gestures for him to continue. John closes his eyes for a moment, and does.

"What I meant was -- wasn't that I didn't like you then. Liked you too much, in fact. But you -- I knew you'd -- I thought you'd've wanted -- more'n' was ready for, and I wasn't--" John stops, catches his breath. That's enough, he thinks. Enough of an explanation, enough of the truth. He keeps going anyway: "I think about it, sometimes. If we'd made a go of it anyway. Maybe we could've-- maybe I would've--"

"Don't," Chas says, gently. "You weren't ready. Neither was I." 

John looks at him, then nods to himself, and looks down. 

"Right. Well," he glances up again. "Seein' you like this. Think it brought that up a bit."

 Chas narrows his eyes. " _Really_?"

"What'd you mean, _really_?"

"I mean -- really? Or were you just -- do you just hate change?"

John scoffs. "Everybody hates change."

"I don't," says Chas, and gives him a long, fond look. "Not always."

John glances at their still-joined hands. "Well then yes, really," he says, with a shrug, though the truth is: _well then yes, mostly_.

Chas laughs, and shakes his head. "I guess," he says. "I guess in the spirit of the -- I should probably tell you something, too."

"What?" John says, wary.

"I'm thinking of getting a haircut."

_No you're bloody well not_ , John doesn't say. Takes a breath. "Oh. Oh, right. Right, then -- how short?"

Chas looks at him, and smiles again. There's a mischevous spark in his eyes like he may be preparing to fuck with John a bit -- _just gonna buzz it all off, John, what do you think?_ , he seems about to say. 

But then he doesn't. "Just a trim," Chas promises, and reaches back, ruffles up the dark, uneven curls at the base of his neck. "It's been a while, I just think it's getting a little long back here."

John reaches over too -- has to drop his hold on Chas's hand to do it, but can't overcome the compulsion to run his fingers through the familiar, silky strands. 

Sometimes, when Chas is on top of him -- when Chas is inside him -- John'll do the same, reach up and thread his fingers through the soft, accidental disorder at the nape of Chas's neck as he buries his face in the side of Chas's throat.

He sighs, and Chas looks -- genuinely concerned, probably at how entirely ridiculous John's sentimentality has turned out to be.

"John..."

"It'll grow back," John says, with only slightly wavering confidence. _And when it does, you'll still be here. You'll still let me near you. You'll still let me do this._

"It will," Chas assures him. "And..." he sighs. "And so will the beard."

John has to laugh. He turns and reaches over, craddling Chas's face in his hands. Kisses him, swift but tender -- it is different, softer and smoother, and his aftershave tickles at John's nose, but -- it's not bad. 

"Guess I'll just _have_ to get used to it again, then," he says, long-suffering, as Chas's hands settle on his waist, clearly preparing to swing John onto his lap and kiss him properly.

"Oh, I'm just so, so glad," Chas snarks, and then, still smiling, grabs John by the hips and hauls him over. 

 

 

 

 

 

 *

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **jessicamiriamdrew:** Speaking of hair, did you see the episode of schitts creek where Mutt shaves. Because i always imagine John would have an Alexis style response to Chas shaving  
>  **morethanonepage:** LOL i had that same thought when i watched that ep honestly


End file.
